Children’s book genres: How does genre work in kidlit?

Middle grade and young adult (and chapters books, ‘junior fiction’, ‘teen’, new adult and adult fiction) are not genres, they’re audiences.

When booksellers, reviewers and even publishing professionals list middle grade and YA as ‘genres’, it does the authors and readers a huge disservice. It implies that the target age group is all there is to these books. Children’s books are children’s books – they’re all the same, right? If you’re a kid, you’ll read any old middle grade and if you’re a teenager, you’re going to enjoy all YA. No need to narrow down your choices further.

But of course that’s not true! All books are different and so are children.

Ask an eight year old, ‘Hey, what are your favourite kinds of books to read?’ and they’re probably not going to say, ‘I like children’s books!’ Most likely, they’ll say ‘sports stories!’ or ‘murder mysteries!’ or ‘graphic novels about cats!’ or ‘anything with dragons!’ or ‘fast-paced multiple POV portal fantasies featuring a diverse cast and strong character arc’ (now that’s a kid who knows what they want).

So YES, genre absolutely exists in children’s books! Underneath the middle grade and YA age category umbrellas lie (pretty much) all the usual fiction genres you’ve seen in adult fiction. Of course some don’t crop up too often because they’re inappropriate or inaccessible for a young audience, like police procedurals, splatterpunk and erotic thrillers for obvious reasons! So if you were planning to query a middle grade agent with your ultra-violent, sexy courtroom drama, you’re on your own.

It’s not always easy to stick a label on a story since categories and subcategories overlap and can mean different things to different people but understanding what these genre terms typically mean can help you focus your own story ideas and point you in the direction of similar books so you can find comp titles and study your genre. It also means you look knowledgeable and professional if you approach agents and publishers – bonus!

Go to your local library and choose some books from the children’s or teen shelves, the more different from each other the better. Think about the sorts of kids who would like them. How would you describe these books to them? What words stand out on the back cover or in the title that hint at genre? Are there any children in your life that you’d recommend these books to?